The present invention relates to computing, and in particular, to a systems and methods for a computer implemented, in-vehicle application platform for conducting Vehicle-to-Business communication.
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Efforts are currently being directed to developing dedicated communication concepts and architectures for vehicular communications. Such vehicular communications could allow market introduction of cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).
Development activities focus on information exchange among vehicles (vehicle-to-vehicle communication (V2V)), and between vehicles and their surrounding roadside infrastructure such as traffic lights or roadwork warning signs (vehicle-to-infrastructure communication (V2I)). A general description of vehicular communication is provided in the following document, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes: Farkas et al., “Vehicular Communication”, IEEE Pervasive Computing, 5(4), 55-62. doi: 10.1109/MPRV.2006.90 (2006).
By facilitating information exchange, V2V and V2I communication may enhance road safety and traffic efficiency. Research activities in PRE-DRIVE C2X, CVIS, or simTD, to name a few, provide proof-of-concept prototypes to evaluate the underlying communication concepts, and assess the actual impact on road safety and traffic efficiency in field operational tests.
The eventual introduction of V2V and V2I technologies faces certain challenges because they are subject to large network effects. For example, the connection and interaction of vehicles with other vehicles and with roadside infrastructure is based on the IEEE standard 802.11p, which is meant for coping with the high mobility of vehicles and the resulting frequency of changes in network topology. This standard is discussed in the following document, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes: Jiang & Delgrossi, “IEEE 802.11 p: Towards an international standard for wireless access in vehicular environments”, Proc. of IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), pp. 2036-2040 (Spring 2008).
However due to the relatively short range (roughly 500 m coverage) of this wireless technology, a certain penetration is needed to achieve certain objectives in scenarios such as accident or traffic jam ahead warning. This is described by Matheus, Morich, & Lübke, in “Economic Background of Car-to-Car Communication”, Proc. of the 2. Braunschweiger Symposium Informationssysteme für mobile Anwendungen, Braunschweig, Germany (IMA 2004), which is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein for all purposes.
In recent years the proliferation of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies, such as UMTS/HSPA, WiMAX, or LTE, has provided the foundation for a third pillar of ITS: the integration of vehicles and business applications (Vehicle-to-Business communication (V2B)). V2B facilitates possible application to multiple domains, including but not limited to fleet management, logistics, or car insurance. Application of V2B to car insurance is described by Coroama & Langheinrich in “Personalized Vehicle Insurance Rates—A Case for Client-Side Personalization in Ubiquitous Computing”, Workshop on Privacy-Enhanced Personalization, Montreal, Canada, pp. 1-4, CHI (2006), which is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein for all purposes.
As the interconnection of vehicles and business applications is related to the vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) and related research activities, V2B can build upon the existing mature integration architectures of the IoT. The following documents describing such research are incorporated by reference in their its entireties herein for all purposes: Mattern & Floerkemeier, “Vom Internet der Computer zum Internet der Dinge”, Informatik-Spektrum, 33(2) (2010); and de Souza et al., “Socrades: A web service based shop floor integration infrastructure”, in The Internet of Things, Vol. 4952, pp. 50-67 (2008).
FIG. 1 shows an overall simplified view of an example of one ITS 100, illustrating V2V communication 102 between vehicles 103, V2I communication 104 between vehicles 103 and infrastructure 105, and V2B communication 106 between vehicles 103 and business applications 108.
An in-vehicle V2B communication system can be deployed on an extended On-Board Unit (OBU) that supports both protocol stacks for V2B and V2V/V2I, respectively. V2B communication does not depend on the number of vehicles being equipped with the communication system. Hence V2B communication fosters the introduction of V2V and V2I technologies, thereby aiding in V2V and V2I communication.
V2B communication faces at least two possible major challenges. One is the heterogeneity of in-vehicle hardware and software components. In particular, the components utilized by different vehicle manufactures, and even in different product lines of the same manufacturer, may call for significant adaptations to V2B vehicle applications for different manufacturers or product lines.
For example, in-vehicle Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) often provide varying input modalities, screen resolutions, and color sets between vehicles of different manufacturers, or even between different product lines. Furthermore, the interface of the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus used for accessing vehicle data (such as current mileage or the oil level) is often specific to the vehicle manufacturer/product line, and may necessitate respective adaptations. Despite the promising opportunities of V2B communication, the high development costs caused by this heterogeneity may pose a burden, and might hinder an early adoption of this new technology.
A second potential challenge faced by V2B applications is the intermittent connectivity of vehicles, as affected by their high mobility. This mobility, coupled with the incomplete network coverage of existing BWA technologies point out the need for an in-vehicle communication concept that enables a reliable information exchange between vehicles and business applications.
The present disclosure addresses these and other issues with systems and methods for a computer implemented, in-vehicle application platform for conducting V2B communication.